My summer holiday is almost over, and it is back to work on Monday. For the first time ever, I treated myself to four weeks off. Three of which I spent at home. It has been an extremely relaxing holiday. The only thing I have been missing is swimming in the lake. We have had a lot of sunny days, but it has not been warm enough this summer to heat the lake sufficiently. The water holds about 14 degrees celsius, and that is not warm enough for me to put on my bikini.

I also went to Denmark with my sister, her husband and my niece. (The water was too cold for swimming there as well.) We lived in a summer house we used to stay in almost every summer when we (me and my sister) was younger. It is a beautiful place close to the ocean, but it also has a lot of other things to offer. As I discovered this year, there are a lot of nice paths in the forest near by, so I did get a couple of nice walks. We also discovered a nearby animal farm, and my 2 year old niece loved it there.

(She gave all the animals a treat. Everyone likes carrot sticks!)

A lot of places my sister and me remembered from our childhood was unfortunately closed down or had expanded their business and did not have time for visiting tourist anymore. There was particularly one place we wanted to go. A small “bolsje” factory. “Bolsje” is the danish word for hard candy. It was this really small factory where you could watch while they made the candy, with no use of machines. This used to be one of the main events for us kids during our visits to Denmark. So, this time we had to go to another factory, but it was not the same. The hard candy is still delicious, and with a lot of different flavors, but we wanted to see them make them in that old traditionally way.

We also went to LEGO-land one day. When I told people we were going to LEGO-land during our stay in Denmark, they usually replied “Oh, yes, because of your niece”. And I always answered “No, because of my brother-in-law”. I think he was the one that looked forward to visiting the park most. But we all had a great time, going on rides and playing with LEGO. The miniature cities they have build is amazingly detailed, and so was the LEGO – Star Wars – exhibition. All those planning, building time and LEGO pieces!

Well, that was enough about Denmark. I did have a very nice time, but it was only one of my four week holiday. The rest of the time I knitted, read books, started a jigsaw puzzle with 4000 pieces and spend time with my friends and family. Oh, and celebrated me turning 30 years old.

(She is definitely not helping.)

(Relaxing with coffee and knitting on the veranda.)

(Amazing cake at “Skafferiet”, a small cafe at a big farm.I love the fact that they tend to use locally grown products in their food.)

Ten years ago I attended a private school for one year, because they had sewing classes and I wanted to learn how to sew. And since then I have in periodes, on and off, cleaned the dust of my sewing machine. This time because I wanted to make something for a small boy turning 1 year this weekend. There is a lot of things you can give a 1 year old for his birthday, but I am a big fan opp homemade gifts. And I also wanted to make something he can enjoy for some time. So I decided to make something for his room. After some minutes on Pintrest, I decided on making a bunting.

My recent UFO is sweater for myself. A lovely pattern by Rauma. But it is kind of boring to knit. The whole sweater is knitted in ribbing pattern. So, I needed a small break from this. And decided to find yarn in my stash to make something for my niece. In the book “Barnestrikk fra mørkeloftet” by Evelyn Sævik (don`t think it is translated in to english yet) I found a sweater I really liked. All the patterns in this book is modeled after patterns from the 70ties. This one is named “The cute sweater” (Søt genser). A fitting name in my opinion.

As I believe I have mentioned earlier, I was taught to knit by my grandmother. And I am forever grateful for the time she took to teach me. Now she is 85 years old, and still knits. She is a remarkable lady, keeping up with the this teqnelocigal age we live in. She has daily contact with her sister, who lives in California. This January her sister came to visit her for an entire month. Norway in January can be quite cold, so they decided to start a knitting project each. Her sister knitted a cap she could wear during her stay her. My grandmother decided on a top in nice warm alpaca yarn. But when she got home, she looked at the pattern and decided it would take too long. While her sister would finish her cap in a couple of evenings, she herself would end up knitting on this project for a long time. She would rather spend her days painting (witch is her main hobby) , she declared, and gave the yarn and pattern to me.

So, the other day, I started knitting the top for her. And she was quite right. It will take a long time to finish this project.

I must confess I am a “gatherer”, and that just not only apply when it comes to yarn. I also gather old things. Not just any old object of course. I truly love everything vintage that has to do with knitting, yarn and sewing. But I also have a weak spot when it comes to bags and suitcases, and tin cans, boxes… and things you can store other things in. Like this old sewing basket that used to belong to my great grandmother.

This weekend I went with my husbands family up in the mountains an hour drive from where we live. We rented an apartment at a hotel friday afternoon, and stayed until sunday midday. We had a great time with nice food, playing cards and swimming in the hotel indoor swimming pool.

I suddenly remembered I have not blogged about the riding jersey I finished during the summer. This is the first project in a long time that I knitted using continental style. Almost every time I picked up the unfinished project I had to remind myself to knit continental and not lever style.

Here in the northern part of Europe, the air slowly getting colder day by day. We just have to accept that with September came autumn. But this summer have been extremely warm and sunny, and with a lot of great memories: